Thursday

We took a long walk to Hammock Park this afternoon. The temperature was 72.

These turtles on the log had the right idea.

Latest weather forecast 

Wednesday

 

It warmed up to a sunny 68 degrees this afternoon after a chilly 46 degree walk this morning.

I rode down to Weaver Park to exercise after lunch. I did some yoga and weights.

The exercise did me good.

This food carousel building finally opened. They've been building it since we moved here. It's a collection of food vendors arrayed around a central courtyard with tables, sort of like a food court at a mall. It's at the corner of Skinner and Alt. 19, one block off the Pinellas Trail and one block off the water, so it's a pretty good location. There's a hotel across the street and a strip of cafes and breweries alongside it.

The breeze was blowing at 7 mph from the north.

Our tile samples came this afternoon. The little ones didn't get any attention from us. 

The three iridescent tiles are big: 2" by 12".

I think we like the green and brown one in the middle best.

Then John said, "What about using both the green and the light blue?" Brilliant idea. I think we're meeting with our designer Friday afternoon to look at floor tile, shower tile, and review the budget. She hopes to have the floor installer's quote by then. I can't wait to see what she says. She knows when to encourage and when to pull us back.

John opening the box. Tilebar does a good job with shipping. It reminds me of unboxing an Apple product.

Tuesday

We hated cooking in our old kitchen. It felt dirty and cramped. We treated it like a rental home in that regard. We ate out as much as possible. Now we love cooking in our new kitchen.

John gets out all of the ingredients and pots in the afternoon.

Then after we feed Toby and walk him, we start prepping. John was on red onion, garlic, and cilantro duty.

I was on broccoli, cauliflower, and curly kale duty.

We fixed Vegan Quinoa, Broccoli, and Kale Curry. It's hard to find a more healthy meal than this.

Easy, fast, and delicious. The quinoa was toasted tonight instead of cooked in liquid. The recipe claims to be a one pot meal, but it doesn't mention that you empty that one pot, cook other ingredients, and then combine. Yes, you end up cooking in one pot, but you've got another bowl to clean at clean up.

Mom and Dad's computer arrived at dinner time. It will give us lots to do while they are here. I'm counting on the touch ID feature to eliminate their frustration with passwords.

The weather forecast for Friday, February 23-Thursday, February 29 looks pretty good compared to the weather we've been having. It will still be cool at night and in the mornings. Low to mid 60s in the daytime is still cold for us. In the 50s, we wear leggings and short sleeved shirt, long sleeved shirt, and a hoodie over it all. In the 60s, shorts with a short and long sleeved shirt and maybe a hoodie if it's windy. Mid 70s, we will just go with long sleeves and shorts. We break out shorts and t-shirts once the temperature crosses 80. The key is to wear layers and shuck them as the temperature rises during the day and cover back up as it drops. Of course, for folks coming from the north, our temps feel a lot warmer to them than to us because our bodies have acclimated to the heat and anything under 75 is cold.

 

Monday

 

Our ideas are beginning to take shape for the primary bathroom renovation. We have yet to run them by our designer, but we've found it's better to give her something to react to than to meet without any ideas. I think we'd like to use decorative tile on the entire wall with the window. Our round tub will be centered under the window. The decorative tile will go from the soffit to the floor on that wall, and it will continue into the shower on just that wall. The shower will be frameless. Both half walls will be gone, the one between the tub and shower and vanity and shower. Therefore, the decorative tile will be more visible. We think we'll cover the shower wall (where the shower head, controls, and hand shower will be) with the floor tile. We'll see what the designer says about that. We may keep the decorative tile in the shower stall only (on both walls in the corner), but if we do both walls, it's about the same cost as doing the entire window wall. We wonder if it's okay for the decorative tile to run vertical while the floor tile runs perpendicular to it: up and down orientation meets back and forth, so to speak.

Here are our favorite decorative tiles. They are 2 inches by 12 inches and made in the same style as our kitchen backsplash tiles: iridescent with depth.

I think this is our favorite one, but I like them all.

Beautiful tile.

This one is the same color as our kitchen tile, just a different shape. I can see the white, round tub in front of each one.

This is a similar tile. It is not iridescent, just glass. It has a ridge going down the middle of each tile to give it some dimension. It's about half the price of the iridescent tiles. We ordered tile samples today. I'm hoping they arrive before we meet with our designer. We don't have an appointment yet.

I keep changing my mind about towel bars. This one is 18 inches long, big enough for one towel. If we got two of them, we could put one to the right of the vanity on the water closet wall and the other one to the left of the round tub, on the linen closet wall.

The reason I chose the 18 inch towel bar is that it matches this beautiful 10 inch hand towel bar that I really love.

I'd like to put one of these to the left of the left sink and one to the right of the right sink on the same wall as the mirror for our hand towels. They will be mounted beside the mirrors. 

We fixed corn and zucchini quesadillas. We had a side of leftover rice and beans, topped with cilantro and lime juice. We felt like we were at a tapas bar.

This was delicious and easy to make. We added a clove of garlic to the mix, and I squeezed 1/2 lime on the quesadillas before I folded them over. We substituted some chipotle salsa for the jalapeño pepper. John baked the vegetable mixture instead of sautéing. Touch on the recipe for it to load in its own window; then you can enlarge it for easy reading.

Sunday

It rained all day Saturday. Here's what the radar looked like when we went to bed Saturday night at 8:30.

Sunday morning at 7:30

 8:30 a.m.

This morning, just before noon.

This afternoon about 1:30.

This afternoon about 2:30.

This afternoon about 3:30.

4:00 p.m.

6:00 p.m.

8:30 p.m

9:45 p.m.

Close to 11:00 p.m.

1:00 a.m.

Toby woke me up at 2:00 a.m. to pee. Still raining.

This was not the sunshine state this weekend.

 

Saturday

 

Our tile samples arrived Saturday afternoon.

The first one on the left was our first choice; the second one was our second choice. The third one had too many veins, the fourth one was too beige, and the last one was too expensive.

1st one: Bond Palladium Matte

Specs

Pictures from the web of Bond Palladium

More pictures

Second choice: Fordham Bianco

Spec sheet

Close up of the tile with grout

Shows variation

Here are the two tiles together on the countertop: Bond Palladium on the left and Fordham Bianco on the right. The Fordham has more variation in the pattern.

Same as above, but in front of the fridge

Same as above, but in front of the cabinets

Here are three samples next to the large 12 x 24 sample we picked up this past Monday from Countryside Tile and Marble. Our favorite is the second one above. It's whiter than anything else we've seen. It has very subtle variations, not enough to catch your eye, but enough to keep it from looking like concrete. It's made in Italy and it's sort of in our budget.

Three choices: light medium and dark

We like the lighter one, but it's also the most expensive. And it has variation in the tile that we might not like. So does the dark one, which is the least expensive. The large tile has zero variation, is priced between the other two, and is the median color of the two extremes. We look forward to seeing what our designer thinks. She usually sees things that we don’t.

It has rained nearly all day. It was a cold 60 degrees today, with a low of 56.

This huge blob has been over us today.

We made this chickpea cauliflower recipe tonight. Very simple and delicious. We've never used almond butter before. We substituted regular red wine vinegar for the two exotic vinegars. John said the flavors were very different than anything we've ever had. We will try this one again.

The recipe made enough for two large portions with a little leftover.

Healthy and perfect for a rainy, cold night.